Her walls frame
the furnace in which are being tried by fire the faiths, hopes and
dreams of the centuries past and to come. In mere volume of population
she is the equal of three great Atlantic states: Virginia, North
and South Carolina. One man alone of her millions of citizens
possesses wealth greater than the valuation of all the property
of the State of North Carolina, the cradle of American democracy,
containing fifty thousand square miles and supporting a population
of a million six hundred thousand.
"In the roar of this modern Babylon beats the fevered heart of
modern civilisation. He who wins that heart holds the key to the
century. Imperial Rome, mistress of the world, was a pygmy compared
to this.
"And what are we doing?
"Our Protestant churches have thirty-five thousand men and one
hundred thousand women enrolled out of two millions on Manhattan
Island. Our invested capital is one hundred million dollars, our
annual gifts four millions, and we fail to hold one-half the children
born in our own homes.
"As a remedy for this the Trustees proposed to me to sell out and
move uptown to vacant lots! They say the people have gone. They
have come--come in such numbers and with such problems, churches
have fled before the avalanche of humanity.
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